We kept shelves of donated suits in the back. We served coffee from the cafe next door. On Saturdays, local attorneys volunteered at folding tables beneath warm lamps.
Above the front desk, I placed one framed photograph.
My mother in front of the shop, laughing at something outside the frame, her hand resting on my shoulder.
On the first morning we opened, Mrs. Alvarez brought a bucket of roses. Not perfect roses. Bruised ones, bent ones, petals uneven and soft at the edges.
“Sunlight,” she said, setting them on the counter.
I smiled.
The bell above the door rang at nine.
A young woman stepped inside holding a folder against her chest so tightly the papers had started to bend. She looked at the room as if expecting to be told she was in the wrong place.
I knew that look.
I had worn it for years.
“Hi,” she said. “Someone told me you help people find out if what happened to them was legal.”
I came around the desk.
Outside, morning light touched the wet sidewalk. Inside, the roses opened slowly in their bucket.
“Yes,” I said. “We do.”
And when I held out my hand, I felt my mother there, not as a ghost, not as grief, but as the steady weight of a truth finally returned to its rightful owner.
